NickMiddleton

Just wondering if anyone is using WFRP (2nd edition) style fate points in BRP? It being such a deadly system I feel that fate points can add some much needed survivability to high fantasy and pulp/Space Opera games.

Thoughts, additions, abuse?

Personally I'm not a huge fan of Fate / Hero points. If lethality is a concern I tweak other rules (THP = CON + SIZ; use MWL not hit locations; trading FP for HP after a fight, using a single die DB table...) rather than use a hero point system.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

Hm, so one to watch the second hand book shops for then...

Thanks everyone.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

The basic character sheet doesn't seem to have hit locations on it.

Hit locations and strike ranks are the two things that I found gave RQ a better simulation feel that any other game.

Does anyone know if these are going to be in there?

They are one of the optional sub systems that were in the play test draft: I used them in some of my play test games, but not in others.

Likewise, Strike Ranks were in the play test draft as an optional system.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

OK, so assuming that I really know virtually nothing about KEW, but happened to read Bloodstone assuming it was an early pulp S&S novel from a contemporary of Howard's or Leiber's and thoroughly enjoyed it - what KEW would people recommend next?

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

Since I got the go-ahead from Charlie Krank at Chaosium, here are some preview images of the proofreading copy of BRP.

Thank you both, very much appreciated.

This is a tape-bound edition being used for proofreading and final edits. Some contents may change, so this is in no way to be considered final.

Looks very good to me. I think the font looks fine for headings etc. on interior text - my problem was always the rounded "3d" colour version on the previous cover mock up we saw as a step too retro, but cruel hobo on it's own isn't a problem and the rest of the layout is classic Chaosium: sparse, clean, readable (heretical notion in a book I know...). And that looks like a decent index as well - very promising I'd say.

Also, my complements to the artists Chaosium has used for the interior illustrations - from the ones we can see there is a lot of excellent work in that department as well.

I have chosen not to display the temporary cover, as it is a placeholder and I don't want to circulate any potential disinformation or add to the hysteria that accompanied the previous cover image.

Very wise - albeit would I be correct in inferring from this that that previous cover mock up is definitely out and that, whilst the painting may be used, the actually cover may well be quite different?

Oh, and I like the look of the character sheet - I tend to do custom sheets for specific settings, but a good basic sheet is always a useful fall back.

Really promising and exciting Jason, I can't wait to see this book in my FLGS (albeit I'm also hoping there'll be a web-site only pre-order as they did with Malleus Monstrorum... )

Nick

Yeah, I got to play DarkSun once. It was quite a bit different than the typical D&D campaign.

If I had enough money, and a wand of "nullify idiocy by IP owner" Dark Sun is one of the currently fallow settings I'd have redone for BRP...

I still may try and do a version of it once the books out actually.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

It's happened to me as well - the boards telling me I haven't been here since 17:02, but the threads up to a week old are marked unread...

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

[started as a new thread so as to try and not derail the new questions to Our Author].

If you object to that, you probably object passively to most of the hobby; almost all roleplaying games are, to one degree or another, built on bits and pieces of prior art. Is the BRP skill system illegitimate because OD&D thief skills were roll low percentage skills? How about the attribute set, which was originally almost identical to the D&D set, with the addition of Size and Wisdom renamed and slightly repurposed as Power?

Open a copy of Call of Cthulhu and it acknowledges the debt its design owes to Steve Perrin's original RuneQuest. OPen any D&D 3 or 3.5 book and you will find an acknowledgement of Arneson and Gygax's original design work. Open SJG's GURPS 3rd edition core book, or GURPS Space and you will find acknowledgements of the key games that inspire, influenced or blazed a trail for Steve Jackson.

It used to be that in RPG's, as in fiction (such as amongst the Lovecraft circle of writers associated with HP Lovecraft), that there was a degree of mutual respect and co-operation between writers and publishers which the fans appreciated and respected. Now, largely thanks to the Open Game License and the attitudes it has encouraged, there seems very little respect for people's creativity and publishers and fans alike seem to regard ripping other people's ideas of without due credit (or even recognition of the original creators moral rights) as acceptable.

And then gamers whine about the talented writers who leave the field to work in computer games or movies or TV...

If you start considering system "property" the whole evolution of this hobby is nothing but thieves.

"This book is dedicated to Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, who first opened Pandora's Box, and to Ken St. Andre, who found it could be opened again."

That's the dedication in my 1980 copy of RQII, and IIRC it was there in RQI as well. MRQ, which clearly has a far closer relationship to that original RQ than RQ did to either OD&D or Tunnels and Trolls contains no such gracious acknowledgement, and indeed was (by one of the parties to the licensing arrangement that allows MRQ to exist) described as being intended to be "the same system but not the same copyright words."

Maybe, but I would have loved it if somebody had done that with RuneQuest a couple of decades ago. :cool:

Personally I think whether it was done then or now it's a shitty way to behave.

What we are talking about here isn't a rewriting a system in words only I think, but more like "Where is the difference between plagiarism and inspiration?" Is MRQ a plagiarised RuneQuest? Obviously not I would say, it's way to different. GORE on the other hand is more similar, but still it's different from both BRP and MRQ. If you steal some ideas here, some ideas there, and add some of your own, then it's well within the realm of "inspiration" to me.

Funny how Steve Jackson managed to acknowledge his "inspirations" in the introduction to GURPS 3rd edition by name, where as MRQ omits them entirely and the closest GORE gets is some weasel words ("...special thanks are owed to all authors of late 1970s and early 1980s game systems."). And Steve Jackson's GURPS is an original system (for all it's influenced by his previous design TFT and stuff like Champions).

If you takes someone's idea, and do something similar, but still different with it, is that plagiarism? That discussion is the interesting one.

"Plagiarism (from the Latin "plagiarius," meaning "a plunderer" or, an older term, "plagium," meaning "kidnapping," or possibly "plagiare," which is "to wound") is the practice of claiming, or implying, original authorship of (or incorporating material from) someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one's own without adequate acknowledgement." (from Wikipedia) I have no idea if that is how the term is legally defined in US, UK or European law but morally that's the definition that makes sense to me.

To quote Wikipedia on Plagiarism again: "Plagiarism is different from copyright infringement. While both terms may apply to a particular act, they emphasise different aspects of the transgression. Copyright infringement is a violation of the rights of the copyright holder, when material is used without the copyright holder's consent. On the other hand, plagiarism is concerned with the unearned increment to the plagiarising author's reputation that is achieved through false claims of authorship." (My emphasis)

Nick Middleton

I remember having discussed about that subject with Sandy Petersen about 15 years ago (at the Aquaboulevard Park in Paris), an he explained me that each time they were in doubt for a rule in a game, they were reverting to the original rule: RQ.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

To quote the acknowledgements section of the clear credit box in Call of Cthulhu (5.6 and later at the very least):

Thanks are also due to the original authors (especially Steve Perrin) and play group connected with the 1978 roleplaying game RuneQuest, now owned by Hasbro, from which the mechanics of Call of Cthulhu were adapted via the intermediary and out-of-print Basic Roleplaying. Mark Morrison has remarked that when he wishes to see how some problem of physical action is handled in a game, he turns first to RuneQuest. He is no the only one.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

My question: I hear you have seen the finished pdf of the book. Is that true??? Christmas release??? :happy:

Follow up question - has anything major that the playtest group saw had to be cut for reasons of space? I'm obvioulsy hoping not...

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

As a suggestion, perhaps people should do some research on the following terms: "Author's Moral Rights", "work for hire contracts" "minimum terms agreement", "trademark", "copyright"? That way some of the current misinformation and ill-informed opinions might be dispelled.

For example, in most jurisdictions (certainly US, UK and Europe) some degree of acknowledgement of the "author's moral rights" is enshrined in law (albeit not enough according to various Writers lobby groups). And in all three writers are advised by their trade bodies / unions NOT to agree to "work for hire" contracts, and these days a LOT of RPG writing is no longer done under such contractual arrangements.

Further, copyright is distinct from trademark. Trademarks CAN lapse, and require vigorous defending in most jurisdictions. Copyright generally persists until a period after the authors death (typically seventy years), and within that time frame cannot lapse, even if the work is out of print: copyright can only be explicitly relinquished.

In addition, people seem to be labouring under a bizarre misapprehension about the size of the RPG market and in particular the size of the RPG market outside of D&D: it's really not that big and is highly dispersed such that it is hard to reach, especially through the traditional three-tier model (of publisher, distributor and retailer). Across the industry whilst the actual market may not be shrinking rapidly, there is a downward trend and from the smallest outfits to the big three (WotC, WW/CCP and Mongoose) there are clear signs of retrenchment. Margins are wafer thin in RPG publishing, even more so than in other specialist publishing sectors, as the market has increasingly high expectations of physical quality and very fixed ideas about price#.

In such a climate a small outfit like Chasoium has to pick its options very carefully. However they have reached their current circumstances (and by far the most considered account is Shannon Appelcline's History, over at RPGNet), if they want to survive they have to pick their risks carefully. They've grown the website, developed a lot of direct only sales items (far more profitable than conventional sales, and the direction the industry as a whole is moving). Given they are a publishing house, I don't see any issue in sustaining their current fiction line, Call of cthulhu RPG line and developing the BRP line - provided they get enough quality submissions for the BRP line. To significantly grow their market they may well need third party support - but garnering that in a fashion that doesn't jeopardise their own sales is the Gordian knot we've already commented on.

Personally, I'm sceptical about licensed settings: they have a significant overhead interms of resources and costs, as they require license fees and approval processes that can soak HUGE amounts of time (which can kill a product - look at what happened to AEG's Farscape and Stargate licenses), and despite what frothig fan boys think, only some licensed IP works as an RPG. For a company with the resources (such as Mongoose), or with the right license terms and relationship with the IP owner (SJG) they can work - but they are not the sure thing that people tend to think IMO.

So I think compelling original content is Chaosium's best option, along with deals such as the Seraphim Guard Dead World license, that lets third parties use BRP with licensed IP. Plus, as discussed here, some sort of BRP license that will allow third party BRP supplements without harming Chaosium core sales.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

#Tell an academic publisher that a typical full colour 256pp RPG hardback retails for £25 and they will blanche in disbelief and question how on earth it is economically viable: the answer being of course that RPG publishers generally cut far more corners than most niche publishers and pay atrocious rates...

The problem is this is only an issue if the third parties are fishing in the same exact pools that Chaosium is anyway. That can happen, but it can just as easily go the other way; its usually more useful for third parties to work in areas that the main producer isn't supplying.

No its not. This was what was claimed would happen, but in practice, several suppleirs used the OGL/SRD to produce rulebooks that competeed head on with WotC own core rulebooks (the ones the OGL was supposed to promote sales of...) and WoTC very rapidly started publishing exactly the sorts of supplelemnts tha tthey'd origianlly claimed they wouldn't need to publish, as the third party producers would do them...

Really, how so? It is a OGL MRQ line, even if it has more in common with CoC.

Chaosium are still in business, still actively supporting Call of Cthulhu and about to release the new BRP - so BRP is clearly NOT an "abandoned" rule system such as OD&D or AD&D. GORE specifically and explicitly (without ACTUALLY infringing copyright or trademarks) clones large portions of Chaosium's BRP, in part thanks to the MRQ SRD and in part thanks to the legal nicety that copyright covers the form of expression, not the idea.

This strikes some people as morally dubious. Also, bear in mind that the original release of GORE didn't allow anyone to use ANY text from GORE - ALL the new text was claimed as Product Identity. This struck some people as both legally AND morally dubious, and pretty clearly against the intent and spirit if not the letter of the OGL. All credit to Dan Proctor, GORE and the GORE licenses WERE revised, and the whol text is now OGC, plain and simple.

It probably isn't any less ethical than the BRP monograph's.

Utter nonsense - Chaosium own the copyright on the text of the BRP monographs! The reason they put them into print was precisely because Hasbro told Chaosium that they regarded the AH (and thus Hasbro) claim on the copyright of the RQIII rules text to have lapsed and thus that the rights had reverted to Chasoium (from whom AH obtained them during the acrimonious settlement in the mid nineties).

But, since you can't copywrite rules (and that is fact, look it up) pretty much anything from any RPG is open provided it isn't a trademark, special term, or setting specific.

Indeed - but crack open a GURPS book, or a D&D book, or Call of Cthulhu and you will find open acknowledgemnt of the original authors of those games, and in the case of several SJG books, acknowledgement of the influence of other games. And SJG and other game companies (such as Pelgrane Press) license IP and brand names, even though by the letter of the law they don't have to: because it is courteous, and because treating existing works and publishers respectfully costs little and reaps much in the way of respect from customers and fellow publishers.

Others tread as close to the limit of the law as is possible ("the same system but not the same copyright words...") and regard it as acceptable to take Open Game Content and use it to clone other publishers books. All of which is entirely legal of course.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

Kind of like giving them a choice of having the World ruled by Evil Capitalist/Godless Communist or having Cthullu eat it .

Cthulhu every time - Why choose the lesser evil?

Nick Middleton

Basic Roleplaying, Basic Role-Playing or BRP is porbably not phrases/acronyms they can trademark/copyright. The logo on the other hand will most likely be copyrighted. Posting houserules or setting information will not be a problem unless the setting information is a direct copy from a published work. They have very few restrictions on fan work as far as I can understand.

There are very important and subtle distinctions between copyright and trademark in US and European law, on which I am not an expert. However, Chaosium definietly have the BRP logo registered as a trademark I believe, and I'm pretty sure they have the title registered in the context of table top RPG's as well, so publishing your own game and calling it "Basic Role Playing" would be an infringment they could action, but calling your game "Tales of Tertaran, the Basic Role Playing Game" would be marginal. As with all these things, the law is in the end a guide - what is or is not an infringment is proved in court.

This site was created in defence of the Basic Role Playing System and with the sole aim of bringing more and more players to it, and to help sustain public interest in the Basic Role Playing System. No copyright infringement is intended, and any requests from the copyright holders to remove information from the page will be complied with promptly.

Worth the fight? If you see Gianni's statement included above, they probably didn't even think it was worth the email.

The fact that one intends no harm is not (under US or European law anyway) a defence. That website breaches Chaosium's copyright under US and European law, the only question is whther Chaosium choose to action it. In deed, I stringly suspect that one the ne BRP is actually released, Chaosium may well politley ask that the files be taken down.

OGL is good. We want OGL!

Why? What actual concrete benefits would Chaosium releasing BRP material as Open Game Content under the OGL bring (especially to Chaosium, who need some clear incentive) and can you actually garuantee that it will do no harm to Chaosium's core business? Because as far as I can see all it would do is make available for free stuff that otherwise Chaosium might have got income from - not a strategy for a business to survive...

A logo license? Like MRQ has?

Yes, absolutely. Becuase let us be honest - the OGL is irrelvant, as rule systems are not copyright. Write a d100 / BRP based game and you are free to publish it, you just can't copy from someone elses work without their permission and you can't use someone elses trademarks without their permission.

If you want to advertise your game as BRP compatible, you need (and actually, that's a dubious assertion in some jurisdictions I believe) permission to use that trademark - for third party publishers that's where the added value lies, in being able to associate their work with the trademark brand, and for the trademark owner the value lies in setting terms for access to the trademark that benefits them (sucha as all licensed works carrying a plug for their core book).

That could work too, if they were very clear and the information about them easily available on their site. The license they have at the moment though, is quite the turnoff for all except for professional rpg publishing companies.

Err, have they actually posted any public statement about licensing? Last time I looked there really wasn't anything. And I quite agree it's rather frustrating. Didn't Dustin say they were working on a formal licensing policy to be announced soon?

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

I agree that MRQ wasn't playtested well -- Mongoose issued a "Player's Update" in July -- and their slim hardbacks are way overpriced. On the other hand, issuing their rules with the OGL does mean a) a free if less complete set of rules, and the freedom to publish your own MRQ derivatives, or MRQ add-ons, within the limits of the license.

It also means people can (and are already) publishing works that effectively copy stuff Chaosium are doing, without Chaosium having any legal recourse. This, to me, is morally dubious. The fact that it was apparently Greg Stafford's intent ("the same system but not the same copyright words") in granting Mongoose a license to use the RuneQuest trademark doesn't make it any less unpalatable. Hence my personal decison not to support MGP and MRQ STL products.

Does anyone know what kind of licenses Chaosium will have for BRP? At the very least, if I post some house rules or setting information on a website, could Chaosium (or some hypothetical company that bought them) pull a T$R and legitimately threaten legal action?

If you go beyond fair use / fair dealing in quoting Chaosium copyright works, or post material that uses their trademarks (such as BRP) without correct permission or which could bring their trademarks (such as the BRP logo) in to disrespect, then yes they probably could I think (IANAL).

If I someday wrote a supplement that had BRP stats in it, even as an appendix, could they go all Palladium on me?

If it misused the BRP trademark, or again went beyond fair use / fair dealing in quoting Chaosium copyright work, yes I think (IANAL). But bear in mind that it's an open question as to whether Palladium would actually win a court case, as stats and a simple note saying "compatible with Chaosium Inc's Basic Role Playing system" may well NOT constitutue a breach of Chaosium's copyright / trademark - Bottom line, consult an actual lawyer or better yet, ask Chaosium in advance...

Does anything BRP need their explicit approval?

As I undertsand it, if you want to quote any of their copyright works beyond fair use / fair dealing, or use their trademarks beyond simple reference, then yes I think (IANAL).

Bear in mind that Chaosium have always had a remarkably relaxed and decent attitude towards not-for profit fan ventures that communicate with them. I've always found them very sympathetic to anything that doesn't infringe their rights.

That Chaosium allowed Basic Role Playing System to reprint the Basic Roleplaying pamphlet is encouraging,

I think that's actually more "didn't think it was worth the fight...", bearing in mind that the copyright breaching files are hosted on a Russian server, and they thus have almost zero chance of enforcing any order for the files to be taken down.

but honestly, given our litigious society, having a system licensed under the OGL or something like it does allay some fears.

Could people please drop this fixation with the OGL? It's a complete red herring! Its benefits are debatable, and its applicability to Chaosium and BRP's circumstacnes are dubious, and far more likely to be harmful than beneficial.

What BRP fans and Chasoium need is a BRP license - a way that lets third parties support Chasoium's BRP without having to jump through too many restrictive hoops, but which also protects Chaosium's core investment in BRP.

As I've said before, Green Ronin's True20 license, or WEG's d6 would be good starting points. A two tier approach - a "Compatible with BRP" logo for PDF's and semi-pro fan material, and a more costly "Approved for use with BRP" for por-3rd patry PDF & print products. Neither would allow a full BRP game (that I'd suggest they should still do via separate specific licenses), but it would allow people to publish their own settings as BRP compatible, or a series of adventures (a la the Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics for d20).

That would allow third party support, whilst protecting Chaosium's core book sales, and still leaving room for specific licenses like Seraphim Guard's Dead World

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

If Chaosium, the only English language RPG publisher from the original wave of RPG publishers in the mid seventies to still survive in anything like its original form, "blew it completely", I dread to think how one might assess FGU (basically dead) or GDW (shut up shop rather than gamble on rebuilding after a combination of factors hit the business hard in the early nineties) or TSR (owned the original Golden Goose, ended up bankrupt and bought up by a fan made good, who sold the IP on only four years later for a huge profit) for example.

MRQ is an adequate BRP variant produced to generally very poor standards, Mongoose are a company whose track record is such that I will not buy from them, nor anything released under their "RuneQuest" trademark license.

SO for me the difference is simple: BRP is a game I am prepared to pay for, and MRQ is not.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

The figures I managed to get back were (several years ago, about the time when Coc 5.5 was published), when combining US imports, british (Games Workshop) imports and french language publishing:

- Worlds of Wonder : Below 50 (Never published in french).

- Superworld : Around 30 (Never published in french).

- ElfQuest : Around 200 (Never published in french).

- Ringworld : Unknown figures (Never published in french).

- RQII : Around 2000 (Never published in french).

- RQIII: Around 15000 (Published in french).

- SB1 : Around 30000 (Published in french)

- SB>1 : Unknown figures (Never published in french).

- Hawkmoon Around 10000 (Published in French)

- CoC : Over 80000 (Not counting 5.5). 2nd best selling RPG ever.

- BaSIC. : (WoW BRP updated) Over 50000 (Published in french).

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Where exactly do these figures come from? And when? There's a dearth of reliable figures in the industry, so I'm intrigued to know what these numbers actually represent. This is sales in France, correct? Up to what date?

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

Chaosium BRP Character Generator 3.00 - The Chaosium Basic Role Playing® (BRP) Character Generator is an ideal tool for roleplaying gamemasters: You enter species, weapons, armor, spells, qualification, experience and prehistory - The Chaosium BRP

It's a freeware character generator for Runequest, although which version I couldn't tell. It said 3.0, but I wasn't sure if that was the Runequest version or the software version.

Looks handy, but definitely not generic.

It's RQIII. The software's home page is here . It's currently up to version 4.1, and there's also a Call of Cthulhu Character generator at version 2.0; alas both are Windows software.

I used the BRP one quite a bit when I was running RQIII over the summer and was pretty pleased with it but I've switched to a Mac and have yet to commit to a software method of accessing Windows programmes as yet, so I can't use either package at present.

Cheers,

Nick

GORE is closer to BRP than MRQ, anyway.

In the sense that GORE uses the MRQ SRD to copy RQII/BRP as closely as possible and still remain legal...

Has anyone actually bought PDF? I'd be interested to here informed opinions.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

Further to the meandering of the Q&A thread, what sort of controls does the board software used here afford us?

For example, would it be possible to create a specific thread (or redefine the Q&A thread) as a "moderator approval required" thread, such that posts only appeared if a mod approved them? A pain for the mods, but it would allow them to directly "weed" the thread, and for it to retain its focus?

If nothing else, a modicum of imposed discipline would do us all some good in terms of helping reinforce good posting etiquette...

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

More seriously I agree with both of you: one needs lots of setting detail to explain why Mages haven't utterly dominated the setting (unless of course they have...), but those ar eseparate from addressing what its like in play.

Now I think you can make a wildly imbalanced party work quite easily - some of the most fun I've ever had in RPG's was playing mundane humans around mages in Ars Magica and many other games have some degree of discrepancy in PC power level. Magic free PCs are not a problem either: I've had no complaints from players in various Fafhrd & the Mouser-esque BRP games I've run where basically none of the PC's had any significant access to magic, but it existed in the setting (an dit's FAR easy to control th epower level in such circumstances of course).

What I most like with "magic" is that it feels part of the setting: the little wrinkles that evoke its particular world. And I dislike "ubiquitous" magic where it is ubiquitous to the point it ought to radically affect the culture (most D&D settings). frankly, any man can pick up a sword or bow - I like mages being a bred apart. Of course, I also like the whole "simple prayers to the Spirits" feel one can doing with RQIII style near universal access to Spirit Magic as well...

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

...They are adventurers and are the rarest kind of adventurers as they are, by and large, successful ones and don't end up eaten or naked in a ditch...

:eek:

We obviously play very different styles of BRP...

Nick Middleton

OK, spun out of recent discussion in the Q&A thread (and as a counter to the ludicrous inference that ALL such rules are solely artificial game restrictions to balance warriors against mages) - what settings have people used / considered that coincidently restrict the frequency of mages / magic use in play?

I always liked the Stormbringer 1st edition INT+POW > 32 idea: that to be a Sorcerer you just fundementally had to be exceptionally intelligent and strong willed / magically attuned (an dthat to progress to higher power levels you had to become inhumanly Intelligent and Powerful).

Another idea I'd really like to try in a BRP game comes from the D&D setting the Scarred Lands - arcane magic taps the raw stuff of magic and thus casting spells releases a LOT of heat and even having spells memorised raises ones body temperature. So casters in the setting never wear armour or even heavy clothing (providing a neat explanantion for all tha tFrazetta art work...), even in cold climates and there are rules for penalising characters who do with fatigue from over-heating.

I've toyed with converting the D&D Dark Sun setting to RQIII for a while. Sorcery in that setting is powered by bio-magical energy gathered from the living entities surrounding the caster (primarily plants but really powerful, sophisticated sorcerers can draw energy from living creatures). Drawing energy too quickly kills the organic life and sterilises the area (hence the sobriquet "Defiler" for Sorcerer's who cast so brutally). Since "Defilers" are hated (and feared) in the setting, using Sorcery (even as a "Preserver", who casts carefully, such that they draw energy slowly enough that the surrounding life is NOT destroyed) is a risky proposition, and achieving high power effects highly dependent on the surrounding flora...

My Ulfland RQIII campaign used the RQIII rules pretty much straight, but also emphasised the importance of literacy in learning Sorcery, and it's scarcity in the setting - with very few people able to read, and reading being an essential underpinning of the Sorcerer's art there were just very few Sorcerers.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

I do not like sanity as per the Cthulhu rules, but I do like the PCs having some reactions to new frightening and disturbing encounters.

My house rule is the following: If the GM deceids that an encounter is new and fightening/disturbing to a character, he has to succeed a roll POWx5 or become demoralized.

Anyone else who uses some modified or light sanity rules?

SGL.

I did, waaaay back in eighties, use the variant of SAN from the second Stormbringer Companion for a few games, which worked reasonably well. I've also used, with RQIII, a variant mechanic designed by Ben Monroe called "Stress" which is designed to do the sort of "mental collapse" one often sees in various horror films (which differs from the erosion of mental stability SAN depicts). Ben's mentioned that it may see print at some point.

The Blake's 7 RPG that the B7 fan-club did was basically a BRP variant and had an interesting variant on the SAN idea: a character accumulates stress points from stress inducing situations and as their accumulated stress level passes predetermined levels (multiples of their Will, a characteristic analogous to POW), they suffer increasing ill effects, until their Stress exceeds their Will times 5, at which point they suffer a Mental Breakdown. Drugs and therapies can reduce Stress.

Another possibility would be to rate how "shocking" something as a number and then make players make Pow vs. Shock value rolls on the Resistance table - if they succeed they are fine, if they fail they are "shocked" (GM determines severity of penalties and duration perhaps?) and a fumble gives them a specific problem? Just an off the cuff thought.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

The trouble here is that everyone is discussing what they think will be in the D100 rules, or what was in RQ or Magic World or some other system, rather than what's going to be in the rules.

The "Spells levels in any spell limited to 1/2 INT, or 1/4 INT for non-mages" is in the playtest draft the playtest group saw, and Jason's indicated that it's still the case in the final manuscript - so I think we can safely say that IS what's in the rules...

The playtest draft didn't inlcude the old MW limit on mages Combat skills to DEX x 3 AFAICT - but since a mages spells are bought from their skill point pool at character creation, and training time in later play is a fixed resource, I'd say Mages were pretty effectively prevented from becoming combat monsters as well. If they spread their skill points too thinly they won't do anything well, and most professions that give access to Magic won't give access to a lot of combat skills, and in later play they havea limited amount of training time to spread between skills and spells...

I am intrigued by the fact that Blast is 3pp per level now - that's a change from the playtest draft I have (and MW IIRC). Can't wait to see the finished book!

Cheers,

Nick Middleton